Hosea 1-4

English Standard Version

1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, ^(A)in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of ^(B)Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hosea's Wife and Children

²When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ^(C)“Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have ^(D)children of whoredom, for ^(E)the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” ³So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while ^(F)I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and ^(G)I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. ⁵And on that day ^(H)I will break the bow of Israel ^(I)in the Valley of Jezreel.”

⁶She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, ^(J)“Call her name No Mercy,^[a] for ^(K)I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. ⁷But ^(L)I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I ^(M)will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

⁸When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹And the Lord said, ^(N)“Call his name Not My People,^[b] for ^(O)you are not my people, and I am not your God.”^[c]

¹⁰^[d] Yet ^(P)the number of the children of Israel shall be ^(Q)like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. ^(R)And ^(S)in the place where it was said to them, ^(T)“You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, ^(U)“Children^[e] of ^(V)the living God.” ¹¹And ^(W)the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and ^(X)they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Israel's Unfaithfulness Punished

2 ^[f] Say to your brothers, ^(Y)“You are my people,”^[g] and to your sisters, ^(Z)“You have received mercy.”^[h]

²“Plead with your mother, plead—
    for ^(AA)she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband—
that she put away ^(AB)her whoring from her face,
    and her adultery from between her breasts;
³lest ^(AC)I strip her naked
    and make her as ^(AD)in the day she was born,
and ^(AE)make her like a wilderness,
    and make her like a parched land,
    and kill her with thirst.
⁴^(AF)Upon her children also I will have no mercy,
    ^(AG)because they are children of whoredom.
⁵For ^(AH)their mother has played the whore;
    she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For ^(AI)she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
    who ^(AJ)give me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
⁶Therefore ^(AK)I will hedge up her^[i] way with thorns,
    and ^(AL)I will build a wall against her,
    so that she cannot find her paths.
⁷She shall pursue her lovers
    but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
    but shall not find them.
^(AM)Then she shall say,
    ‘I will go and return to ^(AN)my first husband,
    ^(AO)for it was better for me then than now.’
⁸And ^(AP)she did not know
    that it was ^(AQ)I who gave her
    ^(AR)the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on ^(AS)her silver and gold,
    ^(AT)which they used for Baal.
⁹Therefore ^(AU)I will take back
    my grain in its time,
    and my wine in its season,
and ^(AV)I will take away my wool and my flax,
    which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰Now ^(AW)I will uncover her lewdness
    in the sight of her lovers,
    and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
¹¹^(AX)And I will put an end to all her mirth,
    her feasts, her ^(AY)new moons, her ^(AZ)Sabbaths,
    and all her ^(BA)appointed feasts.
¹²And ^(BB)I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
    ^(BC)of which she said,
‘These are ^(BD)my wages,
    which my lovers have given me.’
I will make them a forest,
    ^(BE)and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
¹³And ^(BF)I will punish her for ^(BG)the feast days of the Baals
    when she burned offerings to them
and ^(BH)adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
    and went after her lovers
    and forgot me, declares the Lord.

The Lord's Mercy on Israel

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and ^(BI)bring her into the wilderness,
    and ^(BJ)speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor^[j] a door of hope.
And there she shall answer ^(BK)as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶“And ^(BL)in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ ¹⁷For ^(BM)I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. ¹⁸And ^(BN)I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And ^(BO)I will abolish^[k] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in ^(BP)safety. ¹⁹And I will betroth you to me ^(BQ)forever. ^(BR)I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. ²⁰^(BS)I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And ^(BT)you shall know the Lord.

²¹“And ^(BU)in that day ^(BV)I will answer, declares the Lord,
    I will answer the heavens,
    and they shall answer the earth,
²²and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
    and they shall answer ^(BW)Jezreel,^[l]
²³    and ^(BX)I will sow her for myself in the land.
And ^(BY)I ^(BZ)will have mercy on No Mercy,^[m]
    and ^(CA)I will say to Not My People,^[n] ^(CB)‘You are my people’;
    and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Hosea Redeems His Wife

3 And the Lord said to me, ^(CC)“Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” ²So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a ^(CD)homer and a lethech^[o] of barley. ³And I said to her, “You must ^(CE)dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” ⁴For the children of Israel ^(CF)shall dwell many days ^(CG)without king or prince, ^(CH)without sacrifice or ^(CI)pillar, without ^(CJ)ephod or ^(CK)household gods. ⁵Afterward ^(CL)the children of Israel shall return and ^(CM)seek the Lord their God, and ^(CN)David their king, ^(CO)and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the ^(CP)latter days.

The Lord Accuses Israel

4 ^(CQ)Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel,
    for ^(CR)the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or steadfast love,
    and ^(CS)no knowledge of God in the land;
²^(CT)there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery;
    they break all bounds, and ^(CU)bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³Therefore ^(CV)the land mourns,
    and all who dwell in it languish,
^(CW)and also the beasts of the field
    and the birds of the heavens,
    ^(CX)and even the fish of the sea are taken away.

⁴^(CY)Yet let no one contend,
    and let none accuse,
    for with you is ^(CZ)my contention, O priest.^[p]
⁵You shall stumble by day;
    the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
    and I will destroy ^(DA)your mother.
⁶My people are destroyed ^(DB)for lack of knowledge;
    ^(DC)because you have rejected knowledge,
    I reject you ^(DD)from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
    ^(DE)I also will forget your children.

⁷^(DF)The more they increased,
    the more they sinned against me;
    ^(DG)I will change their glory into shame.
⁸^(DH)They feed on the sin^[q] of my people;
    they are greedy for their iniquity.
⁹^(DI)And it shall be like people, like priest;
    I will punish them for their ways
    and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰^(DJ)They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
    they shall play the whore, but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
    to cherish ¹¹whoredom, wine, and new wine,
    which ^(DK)take away the understanding.
¹²My people ^(DL)inquire of a piece of wood,
    and their walking staff gives them oracles.
For ^(DM)a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
    and they have left their God to play the whore.
¹³^(DN)They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
    and burn offerings on the hills,
^(DO)under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
    because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
    and your brides commit adultery.
¹⁴I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
    nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for ^(DP)the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
    and sacrifice with ^(DQ)cult prostitutes,
and a people ^(DR)without understanding shall come to ruin.

¹⁵Though you play the whore, O ^(DS)Israel,
    let not ^(DT)Judah become guilty.
^(DU)Enter not into ^(DV)Gilgal,
    nor go up to ^(DW)Beth-aven,
    and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
¹⁶Like a stubborn heifer,
    Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
    like a lamb in a broad pasture?

¹⁷^(DX)Ephraim is joined to idols;
    ^(DY)leave him alone.
¹⁸When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring;
    ^(DZ)their rulers^[r] dearly love shame.
¹⁹^(EA)A wind has wrapped them^[s] in its wings,
    and they shall ^(EB)be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

Footnotes

Hosea 1:6 Hebrew Lo-ruhama, which means she has not received mercy
Hosea 1:9 Hebrew Lo-ammi, which means not my people
Hosea 1:9 Hebrew I am not yours
Hosea 1:10 Ch 2:1 in Hebrew
Hosea 1:10 Or Sons
Hosea 2:1 Ch 2:3 in Hebrew
Hosea 2:1 Hebrew ammi, which means my people
Hosea 2:1 Hebrew ruhama, which means she has received mercy
Hosea 2:6 Hebrew your
Hosea 2:15 Achor means trouble; compare Joshua 7:26
Hosea 2:18 Hebrew break
Hosea 2:22 Jezreel means God will sow
Hosea 2:23 Hebrew Lo-ruhama
Hosea 2:23 Hebrew Lo-ammi
Hosea 3:2 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams; a homer was about 6 bushels or 220 liters; a lethech was about 3 bushels or 110 liters
Hosea 4:4 Or for your people are like those who contend with the priest
Hosea 4:8 Or sin offering
Hosea 4:18 Hebrew shields
Hosea 4:19 Hebrew her

Romans 14

English Standard Version

Do Not Pass Judgment on One Another

14 As for ^(A)the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. ²^(B)One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. ³Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and ^(C)let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. ⁴^(D)Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master^[a] that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

⁵^(E)One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. ^(F)Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since ^(G)he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷For ^(H)none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ⁸For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, ^(I)whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. ⁹For to this end Christ ^(J)died and lived again, that he might be Lord both ^(K)of the dead and of the living.

¹⁰Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For ^(L)we will all stand before ^(M)the judgment seat of God; ¹¹for it is written,

^(N)“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess^[b] to God.”

¹²So then ^(O)each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Do Not Cause Another to Stumble

¹³^(P)Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide ^(Q)never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. ¹⁴I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus ^(R)that nothing is unclean in itself, ^(S)but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. ¹⁵For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, ^(T)you are no longer walking in love. ^(U)By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. ¹⁶^(V)So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷^(W)For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but ^(X)of righteousness and ^(Y)peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸Whoever thus serves Christ is ^(Z)acceptable to God and approved by men. ¹⁹So then let us ^(AA)pursue what makes for peace and for ^(AB)mutual upbuilding.

²⁰^(AC)Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. ^(AD)Everything is indeed clean, but ^(AE)it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. ²¹^(AF)It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.^[c] ²²The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. ^(AG)Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. ²³But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.^[d]